"The dishes beckon, and I am their reckoning."

The words echoed throughout Palette's soul, shaking her down to her very being. The words held such meaning unknown to pony life before they were spoken. Palette wasn't sure of what to say. She swallows.

"Would you be okay starting out, uh, part time?" she asks you.

You lean back. Part time, huh? You weren't sure you could sustain a nice income with only part-time hours.

"How many hours would that bring me?" you ask.

"I don't know if you know this, but part-time here in Equestria is a max of 10 hours a week, silly!" Palette says, now past the horrors of the sentence you had uttered earlier.

"Only 10?" you ask. Palette looks at you with a confused expression on her face.

"Wait, what do you mean only?" she questions.

"Well, to start, part-time where I'm from is a max of like, 30 or 35 hours depending on who hired you. Anything above that is full-time."

Palette, despite sitting down, somehow manages to trip over herself.

"T-that is just crazy, Anon! You can't tell me that you came from a place where part-time is more than TWICE what full-time is here!" she stammers out. Seeing such cartoon childlike horses get so exasperated brings you much joy in a certain deep, dark corner of your mind.

"Well, it's like that back home, and you were lucky to get any benefits at all. One time my previous employer kept me right at the cutoff for full-time just so that I wouldn't get benefits."

Palette is beyond shocked at the information you're telling her. She's struggling to find words to say.

You lean in close to her once more.

"Can I start full-time?"

One thing led to another, and now you are in the dish-pit. Earlier, with the lovely interview, you asked if you could start today to help out in the back. Palette agreed, of course. She also explained that since you're a dishwasher, the pay wouldn't be that glamorous, but you said you didn't mind. As long as you got a paycheck, that's all that mattered to you in the end.

You were also surprised to learn that anything above 15 hours of work is considered full-time. Benefits of working full-time in a restaurant in pony land include a free dentist appointment a year, and enrollment in some handout law in Equestria for those in hard times. Benefits here were a lot simpler and straightforward than back in your home, you've found. You wonder how many ponies actually take up the dentist offer. Do ponies have an equivalent to a 401k?

Since you're a good, hard working young lad, you've decided to work 20 hours a week since you could use money and don't feel bad at all committing "So much of your time to the business!" as Palette put it.

Your thinking is cast aside when you reach the dish pit. You are greeted by a pretty barebones dish pit setup. It's got the standard 3 sink system, with soak, rinse, and sanitize. The middle sink has a sprayer used for knocking shit and food particulate loose. All in all, a pretty decent setup despite how barebones it is. There's even the dry rack set nearby for you to put dishes in, and from what you can see, easily within your reach when you're at the sink.

There's one problem, though. The sink is a bit too low for you to use standing up. You shudder to imagine what kind of back problems you'll have if you use it as-is. You're somewhat of a creative sort so you think up of a solution for the problem at hand.

Nearby, you find a milk crate sitting by its lonesome, being unused. You take the milk crate and put it right in front of the sink. Perfect!

That's right, motherfucker. You're about to be sittin' and dishin' like no one else has done before. You make sure to tell your pony coworkers to just throw the dishes in the soak sink for you.

"Just toss them in the soak sink here. I don't mind if the water splashes on me, I need them soaked, so throw them in!" you tell to each serverhorse that comes by with dirty dishes. Soon, they all get the memo.

Now you have a full soak sink, filled to the brim with hot soapy water and ceramic dishes. There's even some tableware thrown in, too. You reach from the top of the sink, and grab a standard sized pony dish. It's pretty small, about the size you'd put under a single slice of cake's worth. This doesn't seem that hard. You spray it off, inspect it for stains, and put it in the sanitize sink. There's one down, a night's worth to go.

It begins.

Four hours later, and the business is already closed. Here in horse land, they close pretty early because who in their right mind would work past their own dinner time? You thank the heavenly gods above for putting you in a land where 24/7 restaurants aren't even a concept imagined by any living being ever. It's also a nice plus that everything is within arm's reach of you, you rarely have to get up at all. You simply put the dishes on the rack as soon as they're done being sanitized. You don't even think that you even broke a sweat the entire shift.

The dinner rush came and went, and you were never backed up for a single minute. It's a Friday, for Christ's sake! There should have been much more trouble than this, but here you are, with a nearly empty sink. One of the cook ponies put some pots and pans in the soak sink for you, and you knock them out pretty fast by pony standards.

Palette comes up to you while you're washing the last round of dishes. Another cook pony comes by and drops in another load of cookware in your sink.

"Hey Anon, you're doing a great job thus far! How did you get so fast at doing dishes?" she asks.

"Well, you see Palette, they show up in the sink and I simply get them done." you reply.

"Well, at the rate you do dishes, we should be able to go home by nine! Fantastic!" she says, clearly proud of you.

Palette then starts rambling on about how nice it is to have such a fantastic worker under her command, or some shit nobody cares about. It only took you 5 minutes to clear the sink and put everything on the drying racks.

"-and I think you have a shot at being the first dishwasher to last for more than-" Palette rambles.

"I think that's it." you say.

"-hey! It's rude to interr- huh? You're done?"

"Look at it yourself. Sinks are empty, and cleaned. Got all the particulate through the drain, all the dishes put up. I think we are good to go."

Palette, understandably, is shocked. She looks at the clock on the wall with her mouth agape. She then looks back at you, mouth still agape.

"I, uh, w-wha? Huh? It's only 8:07!"

You turn to her.

You say,

"By the way, when's payday?"

She doesn't know what to say. By the looks of it she clearly hasn't seen someone do dishes that fast. She's just staring at the pristine empty sink in front of her. She then looks at the completely full dry racks. She then looks at you.

"P-payday is this upcoming Tuesday, Anon."

"Great! I'll be back tomorrow to wash some more dishes for you. What time?"

"4 o'clock should be good. I know you said earlier that you wanted us to just... pile them up until then. Are you still sure about that?" Palette asks.

"Positive. I like showing up and having something to do." you reply.

Palette nods her head, gives you a concerned, but happy look, and says goodbye. You then walk out, heading back home to your bridge.

You reach the bridge, and are greeted by your lovely little campsite. It ain't much, a makeshift tent right under the bridge itself, a campfire area right by it, and that's pretty much it. You've stayed at this little place for a while. You're just glad you watched a YouTube video back in the old world on making a fire from some sticks. You start a campfire and sit in front of it, watching the fire, and then watching the smoke touch the top of the bridge.

You like how the water than runs under the bridge is potable. You also like that the water is so clean that you can just dunk your clothes in it, and somehow they become perfectly washed. Must be horse logic.

There's not much for you to do during the nighttime, it gets quiet. Not eerily quiet by any means, but it's quiet. There's no hustle and bustle off in the distance near the center of the town, and the only light is from the moon. Why the moon is so bright is a question you find yourself asking a lot. You can see quite clearly even though it's nighttime. Apparently the ponies around these parts regard the moon as a god or something? You couldn't quite tell. All you know is that you're a strange creature in a strange land.

The local ponyfolk got used to having you around quite fast when you first got here. The worst that happened is sometimes one or two will give you an odd look here and there, but from what you can tell there's a whole bunch of sapient creatures in this dimension or something. You're probably no weirder than the minotaurs or griffins they see on a regular basis. You've had to explain what you are to a couple here and there, and just like that, the word spread and now you're known as the residential human. As far as you can tell, you're not all that important in the grand scheme of things, and to some that may bring sadness, for you it brings gladness. It means you can do your own thing here.

You're sitting in front of your campfire in deep thought, reflecting on everything that has transpired up to this point. You're not sure how you got here, and you're also not sure of what you were doing before you got here. All you know is that you just... appeared. It probably doesn't matter anyway. The only things that came with you from your old world is the clothing that was on you. Your shoes, a white t-shirt, jeans, socks, and underwear. You're kind of glad you don't have your phone. Seeing the photos on there would make you miss the old world more and make you more sad. What would make you even more sad is seeing the battery drain to a point where you'd no longer be able to view the photos. Thankfully, now you have a job to take your mind off things.

You think of Palette Dinny. You think of how she owns the restaurant, and you think of all the trouble she has to go through with hiring and re-hiring dishwashers. If dishwashers have such bad turnover, why is the work so menial? You chalk it up to the eerie childishness of the miniature horses that reside here. You're not even sure if most of them know how babies are made. You wonder what would happen if you told one how babies are made.

You want to tell one how babies are made.

You strip to your undies, and then enter your tent. It's got enough room for one human body and a sleeping bag. You get in the sleeping bag (you found it when you got to the bridge, lucky find!) and drift off to sleep.

You wake up and you poke your head out of the tent. You are greeted by a lovely sunshine and birds chirping. You find it strange how most every morning in this place is perfect. It kind of weirds you out, but hey, it hasn't killed you so you don't have a big issue with it. A rain on the bridge wouldn't kill to wake up to.

You get up, get out of your tent, put on your clothes, and stretch. You look at the clock tower in the distance to find that it is indeed noon. So, like, 4 hours away from your next shift. Your new problem is finding out something to do until then.

You don't know any ponyfolk around you, so you figure your best option is to just sit on top of the bridge and occasionally say hello to anyone who happens to pass by. You make your way around the bridge, walk up it halfway, and chill out.

2 hours have passed and nobody showed up. You figure that's what you get for living under a bridge in the quiet part of town. You're feeling kind of hungry, but you'll make do until work tonight. You can more than likely bum a meal off the owners since you haven't got paid yet. You wonder if that's morally right.

You discard those thoughts, and set off into town. You're not concerned with anyone coming by and stealing your stuff, there's nothing there to steal to begin with. You know that most people in this place fear going to prison. You're honestly surprised that you haven't broken any laws yet. You wonder if being homeless is against the law.

Speaking of the law, you happen to pass a police officer pony on your jaunt through town. The police officer is a male, blue pony (figures) and wears a darker blue vest with a cop's hat on his little pony head. He's got a jet black mane & tail, and his ass-mark is what appears to be a traffic ticket of some kind. What's the deal with these horses and pieces of paper on their ass?

"Hello, officer!" you greet.

"Greetings, citizen! Staying out of trouble?" the officer pony asks.

"Yes sir!" you reply.

"Good! Hey, since you're here, you want one of my donuts?" the police officer asks, pulling out a box from nowhere. Why, that's nice of him!

"Why, that's awful nice of you! I thought cops wanted their donuts more than anything." you say.

"Heh, yeah, well, I bought more than what I thought I wanted. I can't finish this box on my own!" he says.

"Well, luckily for you, I'm a bit peckish. I'll gladly take whatever you don't want."

The cop reaches in the box, and hands you what appears to be a regular glazed donut. You bite into it, only to find that it's actually one made out of cake batter.

"The cake ones fill me up so much! It was crazy of me to even consider buying them! Anyways, run along now, I've got my duties to uphold!" police pony says. You thank him for the donut and continue walking.

That donut hit the spot! You wonder if you're going to run into the officer again. This is a cozy town, after all. Might be a good thing to ask him about some of the laws when you see him again. You're thinking about it, and now you're confident that officer's day completely consists of eating donuts and pretending to look tough. You sit on a bench in a busy area, and just look at all the foot traffic going by.

Time passes, and now it's time for you to show up to work. You duck your head, and walk through the front doors, and are greeted by a couple of the server ponies as you enter. You don't like pony door heights. You go straight to the back, and are greeted by a sink filled with dishes. You also notice a trolley nearby with another sink's amount of dishes in it as well.

Time to slay some dishes.

You get to work, and make a steady pace of washing dishes. The front of house must be busy, because you're getting a significantly higher amount of dishes being tossed in your sink compared to yesterday. This isn't a problem for you, however. Pony dishes are not intricate by any sense, which makes them very easy to clean. It also helps you that the dishes happen to be smaller than standard human-sized dishes.

Soon enough, after 30 minutes, you're completely caught up. Any dishes that are tossed in your soak sink are quickly dealt with and you're left with the sound of a busy restaurant from out front. You miss having a speaker. Hell, even a rudimentary radio would be nice to have. You're also content with just sitting there with your thoughts.

A break in the dinner rush means that there is a break for the front of house ponies. You're soon greeted by the same yellow serverhorse that got you access to the job from yesterday.

"Hi Anon!" she says.

"Hello, yellow server horse." you say.

"That's not my name, silly!" she replies. You don't really care much for names. In your history, the only names you remembered were names of important people and those in charge of you. You remember getting reamed by an angry server one time when you were working as a line cook all because you couldn't remember her name... fun stuff.

"Whatcha up to?" yellow serverhorse says.

"Sittin'." you say.

"Lucky! Well, not really, since you're the one washing our dishes."

"Well, it seems like if I want to make my time here last, I gotta have my milk crate here to sit on while I do dishes. Your pony sinks are a bit small compared to where I'm from. This gig isn't so bad." you say.

"You must have a bunch of dishwashing experts from where you're from!" yellow serverhorse says with a smile. She's not wrong, in fact, where you're from, while dishwashing was high turnover, there was always someone willing to do it. They weren't experts by any means, they were just usually fueled with eternal rage and a metric shit ton of cocaine.

"Nah, humans like me are simply built different." you reply. Yellow serverhorse was about to talk to you more, but the bell signifying an order is ready to be moved out interrupted her. She said a quick bye, and scurried out to the front to move.

Soon after, another round of dishes was now in your sink, and you get to work. The zen consumes your soul, and you find that the hours are already up and it's the end of the night once again. Time flies when you're sat in a single space for a few hours, huh? You finish up, look at the clock, and notice that it's 8:15. A little slower than yesterday, but still fast by pony standards. Palette comes by, using her strange pony magic to hold up a small stack of papers and a crayon.

"Just thought I'd come by and check up on how you're doing, Anon! So, how's everything? Getting along okay with the sink?" Palette says. You sneak a glimpse of the papers that Palette is holding up with that magicky stuff. It's your employee papers!

"Yeah, it's been treating me alright." you reply.

"I'm just happy that you're finding the job okay! You don't seem like you're phased by it at all!"

"Well, it's just washing dishes. It's gotta be done, no need to cry over it." you reply.

"I don't think I've seen anypony with such an aptitude for washing dishes! You know what they say, it is the toughest job in the kitchen!" Palette pipes.

"Good thing I'm, uh, tough enough for it, right?" you say. Palette is clearly giddy that you're working for her. She turns, and puts your employee papers back in her office, all without going there physically! This magic stuff freaks you out man. She turns back to you, to find your eyes still staring at the corner where she took the papers 'round magically. She speaks up, and you focus back on her.

"The real test comes when you finish out your work week! I'm honestly surprised you wanted to work every day when we're open, Anon! Not too many have the resolve to do that, but we'll see how you do when Tuesday comes around!" she says.

"What happens Tuesday?" you ask.

"You get paid, of course! Oh, we're closed that day, too." Palette says. "I think I forgot to tell you, we're closed on Tuesday and Wednesday because it's just not worth being open then. Business is too slow for those days."

That makes a lot of sense. Opens up a lot of opportunity for pony rest time, but that just raises more questions.

"Say, Palette, how many hours a week do you work?"

"About as much as you're going to be! Why do you ask?"

"Ah, so you're not here all the time?" you say.

"As much as I would like that, I just couldn't keep up with it. I have a morning manager around for breakfast and lunch, and sometimes we swap it around so it's fair," Palette explains. "I'm sure you two would get along just fine! He works dinner shifts on Thursdays, so I think that's when you'll get your chance to meet him outside of payday."

"How does payday work?" you ask.

"You just show up on Tuesday, and we hand you your bits, silly! The same as most places here in Equestria." Palette says. You're reminded of how the currency of this place is in coins, and you dread having to lug around a sack. You don't remember seeing any coins that are higher denominations than just a singular unit. You make a mental note to get a chest of some form to lock them up with.

"Well, thanks for the answers. I'm sure I'll have more questions for you in the future. Dishes are done, so I'm gonna head back to my bri- home. I'm heading home." you say. You don't want to tell Palette you live a life as a troll under a bridge. You don't want to run the risk of anyone disturbing your peaceful bridge troll life. You've come to like that bridge.

"Oh, before I forget, do you mind if I ask the cooks to whip me up something to eat? I'm starving."

"Sure, Anon! You'll have to wash the dishes they use, though."

"That's fine."

After getting the cooks to whip you up something (they don't trust you with the cooking equipment just yet) you enjoy a nice entree in the dining room of the restaurant. Since all the tables had the chairs put on them, you sat at one of the booths. As for your food, the only piece of equipment they still had running was the grill, so it's a Dinny's classic grilled cheese combo with a grilled potato side. Not bad!

You examine your environment. Sure is a strange feeling, this room was just full of customers not too long ago. Now it's all cleaned. The feet of the chairs point up at the ceiling, put upside down on top of the tables. You liked being out in dining rooms when it was like this. You remember fond memories of walking out to the dining room after close, and shouting nonsense just because you could. You have a strong urge to yell out "ASS!" but you don't because Palette is still in her office doing some paperwork of some kind. You have a sneaking suspicion she's just coloring in that color book you noticed from the night before.

Hot damn, that's a slappin' nice grilled cheese you got. This place ain't too shabby. You thank the gods above for free employee meals. They just hit different than paying for them! These magic grills do work wonders.

You finish your meal, and do your dishes as a good citizen would. You and Palette just happen to leave at the same time. She heads off in the opposite direction that you were going, and waves at you as you walk home. You get to your comfy troll bridge campsite after a short walk. You do your nightly routine, and head off into dreamland.

That night, you have had a strange dream with some weird blue pony that's bigger than the average pony. Too bad you didn't care enough to remember it as soon as you woke up.

Author's Note

My dreams are lined with ceramic plates.